1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of automatic collection, aggregating, and updating of application usage. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to collecting and distributing statistics of application usage in a set of an electronic devices, e.g., computer systems, portable computer systems, palmtop computer systems, or any other hand-held electronic devices that utilize a display screen, such as cell phones, pagers, etc.
2. Related Art
As the components required to build a computer system have reduced in size, new categories of electronic devices and computer systems have emerged. One of the new categories of computer systems is the “palmtop” computer system. A palmtop computer system is a computer that is small enough to be held in the hand of a user and can therefore be “palm-sized.” Most palmtop computer systems are used to implement various Personal Information Management (PIM) applications such as an address book, a daily organizer (calendar, datebook, etc.) and electronic notepads, to name a few. Palmtop computers with PIM software have been known as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Many PDAs have a small and flat display screen associated therewith.
In addition to PDAs, other portable electronic devices have display screens, such as cell phones, electronic pagers, remote control devices and other wireless portable devices. All of these devices have been adapted to display short lists of information on the display screens to help the user organize and display information, e.g., phone records.
User convenience is a very important factor for portable electronic devices. Typically, portable electronic devices are employed while the user is on the run, e.g., in business meetings, on business travel, personal travel, in a vehicle, on foot, etc. Because the user may be occupied or busy while using the portable electronic device, the number of user steps or user tasks required in order to access information from an electronic device (or to store information into the electronic device) is crucial for producing a commercially successful and useful product. That is, the more difficult it is to access data from an electronic device, the less likely the user will perform those tasks to obtain the information. Likewise, the easier information is to obtain, the more likely the portable electronic device will be used to obtain that information and the more likely the portable electronic device will become a part of the user's everyday activities. Hence, applications need to be as easy to use as possible. Applications can be as simple as a single self-contained program, or as complex as a set of programs working together, making use of APIs, accessing data over the Internet, downloading and running applets from the Internet, and sharing computational and storage resources with other computing devices.
As larger numbers of applications (equivalently called application programs) are written for portable electronic devices, it becomes increasingly important for a system to be implemented that enables users to quickly and easily find the right, or best, applications for their needs. The present invention helps users find the most popular applications by tracking the actual usage of applications on a large number of devices. One goal of the present invention is to accomplish this task as simply and unobtrusively as possible.
Currently, web sites offering software downloads list popular applications grouped by number of downloads or user feedback. These statistics are not always an accurate indication of the usefulness of a particular program. Many programs are downloaded and used for only a brief time. Only a small percentage of users who do download an application take the time to write a comment. An objective of the present patent is to provide more accurate application information to users and developers by using actual usage statistics to track the popularity of applications.
One area of prior art in the area of application usage monitoring are the process monitoring tools that come standard with operating systems. These include the “ps” command in Unix and the “Task Manager” in Microsoft Windows operating systems. Both of these tools give the user the present status of processes and/or applications running on the computer system, showing parameters such as: percentage of CPU usage; percent of memory usage; total CPU time; and actual memory usage. These tools measure usage for only the applications that are currently running, and stop measuring an application's usage when the application stops running, and does not store any usage statistics. Hence, these tools do not accumulate usage data over time for a particular computer, nor do they accumulate usage data over many computers.
Another prior art usage monitor is “Watcha!”, a software that runs on the palmtop computer from Palm Inc., and monitors application usage in terms of duration and battery usage. The “Watcha!” software collects this data for the user of the palmtop computer and has no facility for having a server collect data from a plurality of palmtop computers, nor does it have any means for sharing the data with other computing devices.
Another prior art usage monitor is “Application Usage Hack”, a software which monitors application usage for a palmtop computer in terms of count and duration, and can upload the collected data to a host computer in the form of a CVS file. Once in the host computer, the user can translate the CVS file into other formats, including spreadsheets. The overall process of collecting usage data on the host computer requires the user to manipulate the data. Hence, the tabulation of data is not automatic. Also, there is no provision for sharing the data with a server in order to accumulate data from a plurality of electronic devices.
Another prior art usage monitor is “WorldCharts”, a service that tracks the popularity of applications and various types of content (i.e., music and movies). However, it relies on users sending votes via email or entering them on a web page. Hence, this software is not automatic, requiring lots of user intervention. Overall results are based on ratings from users, rather than from actual usage data, making the results very subjective.
These prior art usage monitors suffer from many deficiencies, and these deficiencies are addressed in the present invention.